A century ago, when Brazil was Latin America's only monarchy, a nobleman named Joao Batista Viana de Drummond opened Rio's first zoo. To attract customers, he started a daily raffle with gate prizes. And, in a fitting flourish, the numbers used for the raffle were symbolized by animals: the ostrich, the camel, the elephant, the monkey, the tiger and others.

A century ago, when Brazil was Latin America's only monarchy, a nobleman named Joao Batista Viana de Drummond opened Rio's first zoo. To attract customers, he started a daily raffle with gate prizes. And, in a fitting flourish, the numbers used for the raffle were symbolized by animals: the ostrich, the camel, the elephant, the monkey, the tiger and others.

The animal game turns philanthropic barons into gambling bosses and gambling bosses into philanthropic barons. The animal game turns bookies into mathematical zoologists and interpreters of dreams. It turns welders and peddlers and hairdressers into hunters chasing lions and monkeys and peacocks through streets dense with meaning and mystery. The animal game is jogo do bicho, a billion-dollar Brazilian lottery that is illegal and respectable, clandestine and brazen, joyful and murderous.